Every Hour Has Come to This
by INMH
Summary: Fill for mistress britt's prompt on the TVD comment fic meme: "Finn/Sage-The night he turned her."


Every Hour Has Come to This

**Rating:** PG-13/T

**Genre:** Drama/Romance

**Summary:** Fill for mistress_britt's prompt on the TVD comment fic meme: "Finn/Sage-The night he turned her."

**Author's Note:** FINN/SAGE, DAMN DO I LOVE IT.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own The Vampire Diaries. It belongs to L.J. Smith/The CW. The title comes from the song "A Thousand Years", by Christina Perri.

()()

The village is littered with bodies.

Mikael has gone on a rampage, slaughtering anyone in his path. At least half of their number died before he eventually cut a path through the settlement and disappeared into the forest. He left in the direction of the native's village, and dimly on the air are the screams of the dead and dying, near and far.

Sage saw Mikael's fury and retreated indoors with her neighbors. They sat in silent, frozen terror, hearing the shrieks and the cries and the pain, and it seemed to go on forever. Later on, Sage would estimate that it had taken less than fifteen minutes. It all happens in the early morning.

It's hours before anyone leaves their houses. In that time, they hear Mikael return, hear him howl in what seems to be pain. Then everything is silent.

The people start to creep out of their hiding places, in and behind houses, though most come from the bowels of the forest where the thought they'd be safest. The tentative, tense silence is suddenly broken by the agonized cries of families finding their loved ones dead in the dirt. It's gradual, and it gets worse as the people realize it's safe to come out and explore.

Sage's father is dead. He has a long gash down his chest, and his eyes are wide open, fixated on the sky. Sage cries, but after her mother died all she knew of her father was him as an unreasonable authoritarian, and it's not the same grief most daughters would give their fathers.

No one goes near Mikael's house.

There's a mound of dirt near the garden, and someone says that they thought they might have seen Rebekah and two of her brothers burying someone there. They couldn't tell which ones they were.

()()

Night falls.

"We're leaving," Dyrfinna is one of Sage's closest friends. "We're going to the coast. Father says that we're to set up camp there, and then we're leaving. He says we're… Going home." The concept sounds foreign, and for good reason- This _is_ home. They were both born there, as well as anyone under thirty or so years of age.

Sage stares into the fire. It's a funeral pyre: Countless bodies lumped together and burning, bones crackling, the scent of scalded flesh drifting through the air. She knows each and every person in the pile, and still cannot fully comprehend that she will never speak to any of them again.

"I'm staying."

"Sage, he's not coming." Dyrfinna says, and her voice is cold now. She was the first to mention to Sage that Finn and his entire family seemed _different_, using the word as though it were a repulsive curse. She'd grown wary of him, and now apparently thought that Mikael's destruction justified her views on Finn as well.

"Good for you and your opinion, Finna, but I'm staying." Sage doesn't even look at her. Dyrfinna looks like she's about to press the subject, but her father yells at her to hurry.

"Lovesick fool, you are. See how much that matters when he rips your throat out." She leaves, and Sage is alone.

The night grows even darker, though the fire burns continually brighter as it finds more skin and cloth to eat. Sage is cold, and she knows that the wolfmen could come looking for vengeance. She knows that something _did_ majorly change with Finn's family, and that being out in the dark is probably not smart.

She has to wait.

Sage saw the changes too, saw that something darkly strange was happening to Finn's family. But she didn't pay any mind to it, tried to pretend like nothing was going on. She tried to pretend that she didn't notice how much stronger and faster Finn seemed to be. Or that when she'd cut her finger on a knife, Finn had been oddly fixated on the blood for an odd moment before he'd snapped out of it and handed her a cloth.

There were whispers of 'demons' and 'monsters', and Sage had ignored them all.

Finn is not a monster.

()()

Finn returns.

One minute Sage is totally alone, and the next she senses him standing off to the side. She doesn't turn to look, doesn't speak for a time, and neither does he. He does, however, move closer until he's standing right behind her. They stand and watch the fire together, and Sage trembles and wants his touch.

"Where did you go?" She asks after a time, when the fire has already reached its peak and is starting to die.

"I was… Looking for my father." He says delicately. His voice is comforting more than any one other person could hope to be.

"Did you find him?"

Finn doesn't answer, and Sage convinces herself that she doesn't want to know.

His arm slides around her shoulders. "I'm sorry."

Sage sighs, and then lets her head fall into the crook of his neck. "For what?"

"Your father." Her brow furrows, and she looks up at him questioningly. When Finn sees her expression, he elaborates. "He wouldn't have left you here. He'd have dragged you with him and the others."

Sage nods. She's suddenly exhausted, and with Finn at her side, she finally feels safe enough that she could sleep. She doesn't want to go back to her house now, though; the idea of going inside and feeling the instinctive familiarity of her home makes her feel sick.

Finn has always been perceptive. "Are you tired?" Sage nods. He starts to pull her in the direction of her house, but she shakes her head. Finn takes a moment to think, sees her still fixated on the fire (and if she knows him, he's starting to worry about her), and then pulls away. "Wait here."

That was her intention from the beginning. He disappears in the blink of an eye, and it takes him less than a minute (or maybe more, fatigue is making the seconds blur together) to return, a blanket in hand. Sage isn't certain, but it might be one from his house; she thinks she might recall coming inside and seeing Esther working on it before.

Finn wraps her in it, pulls her to his chest and lowers them both to the ground. Sage is fully aware of how bizarre this is, resting in front of a pyre of burning corpses, but can't bring herself to care. Other than gratefulness for Finn's presence, when he could have just as easily abandoned her and chased after his father or siblings and assumed that she would be fine, she is numb.

She drifts off to sleep with her head on his shoulder.

()()

"You need to leave with the others."

"No."

Sage is partly awake, and her head is on Finn's lap now. The fire has died down considerably, and she can't see his face anymore. Finn sighs.

"Please don't be difficult."

"I can only be me." She would smile if she had the energy. Or the heart.

"You want to stay here?"

"I _want_ to stay with you." She rolls her head so that she can look up at him. "And something tells me that you have no intention of staying with the rest of the villagers."

"They wouldn't have me."

"And as miserable as I'd be without you, they'll not have me either."

"You can't stay with me."

"Why not?"

"It's too dangerous."

"There are ways to correct that."

Finn is no fool, and as Sage awakens further and her stare hardens, she knows that he knows what she's driving at.

"No."

"Why not?" He's always loved her sass, her headstrong mannerisms and her inability to take an unsatisfactory answer at face value, without question. But right now she can tell that this is the one time that he wishes that she would just do as he asked.

That makes it all the more important for Sage to question him.

"You need to live a long, happy life. You need to get married and have children and be content and loved. I… Can't give that to you anymore." Sage is indignant; he assumes that getting married and having children is her lot in life, and she had thought better of him (maybe he hadn't meant for it to come off that way).

She's also hurt on a few different levels, because before tonight she assumed that she would have all of those things with him and him alone. Not to mention the fact that Finn has clearly abandoned whatever happiness he once had, because he sounds about ready to hurl himself off of a cliff with despair.

"What's the point in living out the rest of a normal life if it'll be unhappy?" Sage presses. "If I become like you, I'll always be happy."

"And you'll be damned." Finn says hollowly.

"I'd rather be damned with you then saved and alone." She sits up, and her fingers toy with the fabric of his shirt. "This is my choice, Finn. I _choose_ to be with you, for better or worse." She smiles. "And there's nothing you can do about it."

Sage doesn't realize it, but Finn is moved. Finn is so deeply moved that she cares so much about him, that she's willing to cast aside her humanity to stay with him. And he's grateful beyond all recognition that through the blood-sucking, light-shirking demon he's become, Sage still cares enough to see who he is beneath.

He loves her so much.

()()

They stumble into Sage's home and make love, long, slow and languidly. They've never done it before, as neither of them wished to draw their parents' wraths with an unwanted pregnancy. Throughout it all, Sage can see Finn shaking, trying to restrain himself- he's so much stronger than her, he could hurt her if he's not careful.

"When I'm like you, you won't have to hold back." She purrs into his ear with a grin, laughing breathlessly when he shudders and groans.

Sage leans up, nails digging into his shoulders, and sinks her teeth into his collarbone, drawing blood. Finn growls and it's without question one of the most arousing sounds she's ever heard. His hand comes up to cup the back of her head, and he doesn't pull her away.

Sage drinks from him slowly, and judging from the way Finn moans, he likes it.

She doesn't know how much she drinks. All she knows is that his skin starts to knit together beneath her tongue and teeth, and she tears it open again when she climaxes and bites down _hard_. She comes away with red smeared around her mouth, and Finn's eyes are dark with lust- both kinds.

They lie together, hands and legs entwined, until Sage reaches over the edge of the bed and pulls Finn's dagger off of his belt. He stares at her, and she can tells that he's seconds away from ripping the blade from her hand and putting a stop to everything right then. But she can also tell that he wants her with him as badly as she wants him with her, and so he doesn't stop her when she plunges the dagger through her heart.

Finn does make an awful noise, though, like someone's run _him_ through. He cradles her, and he's shaking. Sage pants, coughs, shudders, vision going spotty. She clutches his arm tightly, waiting for the darkness and the pain to end, and _oh_ she hopes that they did this right-

Sage dies.

And when she wakes up, she's happy.

Because now they have all of eternity with each other.

-End


End file.
